Tesla Roadster Produces Co-Founder Emission

When Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard stepped down from the CEO spot earlier this year to concentrate on technology and development, it was apparently his first step toward the door he was just shown. Seems Eberhard’s been ousted from the company, or as Tesla euphemistically puts it: “transitioned from the board of directors and executive management of the company to the advisory board.”

Why? Tesla won’t quite say. “I’m sorry that it came to this and wish it were not so,” Tesla Chairman Elon Musk said in an email to the San Jose Mercury News. “It was not a question of personality differences, as the decision to have Martin transition to an advisory role was unanimous among the board. Tesla has operational problems that need to be solved, and if the board thought there was any way that Martin could be part of the solution, then he would still be an employee of the company.”

Eberhard, however, has a different take on the situation. “Yes, it is true–I am no longer with Tesla Motors–neither on its board of directors nor an employee of any sort,” he wrote in a post to the Tesla Motors Club blog. “I have also signed a nondisparagement agreement with Tesla, so I must, by contract, be a bit careful about how I word things. But I am also not going to lie about it. I am not at all happy with the way I was treated, and I do not think this was the very best way to handle a transition–not the best for Tesla Motors, not the best for Tesla’s customers (to whom I still feel a strong sense of responsibility), and not for Tesla’s investors.”

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